Blueface Angelfish

Care at a glance

Overview

Blueface angelfish are mostly peaceful but become territorial once they are the largest fish in the tank, and they will not tolerate other angelfish, so keep just one. They graze sponges and encrusting invertebrates in the wild, so feed spirulina, marine algae, angelfish preparations, and mysis or frozen shrimp several times a day in a large, mature setup. They are not reef safe: most individuals nip at stony and soft corals and clam mantles, and a genuinely reef-safe blueface is the exception, not the rule.

In the wild

Blueface angelfish live on coral-rich lagoons, channels, and outer reef slopes across the Indo-Pacific, from the Maldives to Vanuatu, typically at 5 to 30 meters and often near caves. They spend their time foraging over rock and retreating to cover when threatened. A tank needs to be large with abundant live rock arranged into caves, since this is an active, deliberate swimmer that does not do well boxed into a small footprint.

Good to know

Pomacanthus xanthometopon reaches about 38 cm. Juveniles are black with vertical white and blue bars, while adults develop the fish's namesake look: a bright blue face with a yellow bar across the eyes, a dark patch on top of the head, and a reticulated pattern of yellow-edged scales over a blue body. The species was long placed in its own genus, Euxiphipops, before taxonomists folded it back into Pomacanthus as a subgenus.

Did you know

A specialist Indonesian angelfish hatchery has bred this species in captivity in limited numbers, one of only a handful of large angelfish anyone has managed to spawn and rear commercially rather than collect from the wild.

Related species

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  Emperor Angelfish

  Pomacanthus imperator

  15 in (38 cm)185 gal (700 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)

• 

  Asfur Angelfish

  Pomacanthus asfur

  15.7 in (40 cm)135 gal (510 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Koran Angelfish

  Pomacanthus semicirculatus

  15.7 in (40 cm)132 gal (500 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)

• 

  French Angelfish

  Pomacanthus paru

  16.1 in (41 cm)201 gal (760 L)72–81°F (22–27°C)

• 

  Annularis Angelfish

  Pomacanthus annularis

  17.7 in (45 cm)219 gal (830 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)

• 

  Majestic Angelfish

  Pomacanthus navarchus

  11.8 in (30 cm)145 gal (550 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)